Norm projects Cowboys draft

1st Round &#8230; They would love Fletcher Cox, he won&#8217;t be there. My pick would be Michael Brockers, a massive human being. 6&#8217;5&#8221; 322 lbs and makes a perfect 3-4 DE. A big strong ultra strong run stuffer. He&#8217;s not a QB pressure guy. He might be a 4-5 sack a year guy, but a monster physical presence. The trouble is that&#8217;s who Philly wants also, and they&#8217;re one spot behind and they&#8217;re an aggressive football team. It&#8217;s conceivable they could jump just ahead of the Cowboys. Then your fallback is Barron. I would not pass on DeCastro, but Brockers is not a bad player and a good prospect at a big need. They have Lissemore and Brent as backup caliber players. They don&#8217;t have even have a good player on the defensive line as a starter. If they draft Brockers they can release Kenyon Coleman and his $2 million salary and make cap room.

2nd Round .. I don&#8217;t think Harrison Smith makes it. I would love to have him in the lockerroom. He&#8217;s just a football player. Speaking to other teams, he&#8217;s a great guy and a guy other players in the lockerroom get to for advice. I love the nosetackle Ta&#8217;amu, but they won&#8217;t go DL with back to back after taking Brockers. Same with Devon Still. I&#8217;m taking guard Amani Silatolu. I move Bernadeaux to center to compete with Costa. I hear Peter Konz is sliding into the 2nd round. If he&#8217;s there, Yahoo. I&#8217;ll say he won&#8217;t be.

3rd Round .. The run for cornerbacks start in this round. My preference is Trumain Johnson from Montana, but I don&#8217;t think he makes it to the Cowboys pick. So my pick with be Casey Hayward. He intercepts the ball, Lord Almighty can you imagine such a thing? He had 15 picks at Vandy and wasn&#8217;t playing against WRs that use a walker and cane. He may not be a #1 CB, but he might could play FS. Many peole think that will be his ultimate position. So he plays nickel and dime right away as a rookie, then next year plays #2 CB or move him to FS.

4th Round .. This is my opinion, but I don&#8217;t think the Cowboys understand what they lost in Laurant Robinson. He was Romo&#8217;s go to receiver by the end of the year. Dez Bryant was the 4th option by the end of the year. He looked for Robinson, Witten and Austin before Bryant when it comes to reliability. For the most WR ready guy you go with Broyles. Broyles will be fine to work out by training camp. Also the tiny slot WR out of Arkansas Joe Adams. He&#8217;ll never be a #1 WR, he&#8217;s too small. But he could make a tremendous slot WR. He can also return kicks. He&#8217;s not as fast as you would think a little guy would be, but he&#8217;s slippery. They may pick WR later in the 4th, because they may feel there is a grouping of closely related WRs and that the value is at another position. The other 4th round pick was the hardest for me to project. I&#8217;m going Marcus Forston out of Miami as a DL. He declared early and was hurt last year. If he had stayed healthy and stayed another year he would have been a higher pick. I like Jeff Allen, but he won&#8217;t be there. Why an OT? I&#8217;m not sure on Jeremy Parnell as a backup tackle. I&#8217;ll give you one local name, ILB Tank Carder. He only fits inside in a 3-4, and will slide because 4-3 teams will pass on him.

5th round &#8230; Another CB. Why another CB? Does this club intend to give Jenkins a big contract extension after signing Carr and Scandrick longterm? Do they put 125 million into one position? Hayward might be a safety next season. I go to Chris Greenwood from Albion State in Div. III. He&#8217;s got good speed and size, but raw as just killed meat.

6th Round &#8230; 2nd TE. I really like George Bryan from NC State. Big TE, 6&#8217;5 265. Excellent receiver early in his career, his Senior Year his QB left and he played with a bad QB and he was relegated to a blocker. He caught 17 TDs in college. And he plays all special teams teams. I think this is a value when you put him in a specific role. He may never be a star TE, but I think he can be a solid backup TE.

Sounds like it was more of a "what I want" than a "projection". With Norm, I'd care more about the information he's gathered to make a projection rather than his actual thoughts on players (which I'd rank as completely unworthy of note).

He said it was a combination of both because he would've taken DeCastro ahead of Brockers.

I thought it was interesting that he thinks Brockers will be a really good player in this league. He stated that if Brockers went back to LSU for 1 year, he would be a top 5 selection in the 2013 draft.

:laugh2: Yeah I read it the same way. Including him getting all excited with his heavy breathing and what you think sounds like him slobbering some. Gotta love how excited norm gets during some of these things.

Sounds like it was more of a "what I want" than a "projection". With Norm, I'd care more about the information he's gathered to make a projection rather than his actual thoughts on players (which I'd rank as completely unworthy of note).

Yeah, plus he used factors like "the DL is getting old" as a reason to take a run-stopping DE. Hope the team isn't thinking like that.

Do you still get calls from GMs seeking opinions even though you aren’t covering the draft like you used to?
Yeah, I still got two calls today. I had a HC call today and told him I’m not covering the draft. I talked to about a dozen general managers in the last few days.

Cowboys prediction?
You don’t know what is going to be there. There are 5 blue chippers and 20 first rounders. Typically there are 8-9 blue chippers, with 24 first round caliber players. And I’m stretching it by saying 20. There’s a dropoff around 16 and 17. This will be a need driven draft. Cox won’t be there, he’s the best pass rusher in the draft and that guy never falls to #14. Barron and DeCastro could be there because because of the positions they play. Brockers could be there as the best 3-4 DE in the draft. Ingram could be there, but he’s an OLB type . I could make better predictions for the Cowboys if you’ll tell me who’s going to be on the board. What happens if if two WRs go in the Top 10?

How would you feel if the Cowboys went defense with their first 5 picks?

I have no problem with that. They need to get that defense fixed. The Giants show you that you win in crunch time with defense. At the end of you had the Ravens and 49ers in the Championship game. Ware needs help. He’s older. You need 4-5 cover guys with all the 4 WR sets. I would go quantity on that side of the ball.

I know you don’t grade player by player like you used to. But do you see any surprises with specific player where he could go higher or lower than he’s projected?
The x factor guy in this draft is Poe. The JPP of the draft a few years ago. A huge hit or huge bust.

We all tend to pull mock drafts from people. I see him go #9 and I see him at #25. He’s all over the board.
And there’s always a slider in every draft. Last year I was the only guy who put Prince Amakamura in the 20’s, and everyone had him Top 10-15. A good player will slide, and that could be Poe this year.

What’s your opinion on character flaws or flags?
I don’t take them. You win with characters. Look at the Rangers clubhouse, and they’re great guys. Hamilton has had some personal problems but the only person he hurts are himself. I know some teams take all the character guys completely off the board. You take bad character guys in the 4th round maybe, but not the 1st and 2nd.

Dennard just got arrested at 2 a.m. in a bar fight for assaulting a policeman.
He’ll go in the 4th.

Do you consider him in the 4th.
Yeah, that’s the round. That’s the start of the last day of the draft. Teams will re-evaluate where their needs are and think they need a CB, and he’ll be sitting on the board with a 2nd round grade that could be had in the 4th.

New story that the Superdome was wired so that Loomis could hear the other teams chatter? What impact do you think that would have if it’s just the GM?
If the GM is sitting in the coaching booth, that could be pretty significant. If he’s just sitting in the owner’s booth with Jerry Jones, it wouldn’t.

This seems like an area where people simply trusts that people won’d do something like this.
Does anything surprise us coming out of New Orleans? They can deny it all they want, but with the last few months they’ve had the assumption now is they probably did do it. If Loomis was sitting up there with the coaches in the box, it’s tremendous.

Can you imagine the punishment?
It’s going to be a heck of a lot bigger than suspending your GM for 8 games. That’s going to hurt you on draft day. That might cost you a 1st round draft pick.

The only pick I don't like is Silatolu. I don't know much about Forston, but I don't doubt Norm when it comes to the draft. He does his due diligence and while he relies a lot on Jeff Bowers for his draft information, he knows what he is talking about.

The only pick I don't like is Silatolu. I don't know much about Forston, but I don't doubt Norm when it comes to the draft. He does his due diligence and while he relies a lot on Jeff Bowers for his draft information, he knows what he is talking about.

I don't like using another pick on Forston after taking Brockers.

Forston was the #1 DT in the nation coming out of HS in '08 - part of that great 2008 Miami recruting class from Northwestern HS in Miami. Was rightfully compared to all the great Miami DT's because of his size, strength, and explosion. Couldn't stay healthy though.

Silatolu is a monster. He's going to be a very good player. He's strong, mean and can move very well at his size.

Played at D2, has to change positions, Midwestern State's offense isn't pro-style and I think the jump in competition will be too much. There's a reason why the LSC doesn't produce many good offensive lineman, and while Silatolu might've been dominant, I'm not buying it.

I'd be very underwhelmed with Brockers in the first. YOU HAVE TO BE ABLE TO GET PRESSURE ON THE QB. I haven't seen or read anything that's convinced me that Brockers will develop into a good pass rusher. You don't draft run stopping DE's 14th overall.

Played at D2, has to change positions, Midwestern State's offense isn't pro-style and I think the jump in competition will be too much. There's a reason why the LSC doesn't produce many good offensive lineman, and while Silatolu might've been dominant, I'm not buying it.

Silatolu isn't your typical D2 guard prospect by any stretch of the imagination, so what they've produced in past drafts doesn't correlate to what kind of prospect Silatolu is.

The fact is, he's a very talented prospect who played D2 because of grades and many people who know what they're talking about have him going early second/late first round.

I understand you not being sold on him... but to imply that he isn't a good prospect because he played D2 is just off base.